Monday, August 08, 2005

I get bored easily

Yesterday, it hit me. The need to make yet another quilt top. I need it really. I need a quilt that's small enough to carry around every week to quilting bee. I need a project that's easy to work on at someone else's house - no keeping track of bazillions of little beads, vials, different colored silamide thread... Like that.

Can't actually quilt on my already-started-the-quilting-on quilt, because that one takes thinking, not just soothing quilting in a known pattern. It's actually been so long since I have quilted on that particular project, "Space For Rent," that I actually had to go dig it out of the closet just to see what it was. Ah, a liberated houses with space aliens quilt. I remember that. I forgot how much fun it is. Should really finish that one day. But not now.

Now I want to just quilt freehand fans, no thinking, no worrying. Soothing quilting. I need that sometimes. Guilt would not let me spend much time creating a top (should be working on sampler) so I threw this one together:

If you didn't know better, you might think I'd spent time piecing or appliquing the center, but actually that is just one chunk of Nancy Wolff fabric that my friend Siobhan bought for me. Since May I have been gazing on this fabric, trying to figure out how to use it most effectively. The motifs are so close together that I would have to slice through and use up half the motifs in order to get any whole ones. So I just went ahead and cut out a chunk of the fabric and added the borders. Voila. Still have some of the fabric left so if I do decide to make variable wonky stars with these guys in the center of the block, I still can.

My husband asked, couldn't you have cut it so that WHOLE heads showed up - he objects to the left and lower sides. No, I obviously couldn't. I used the fabric as it was, just eliminating selvage. The bottom bit was at an angle, and the top maybe too after I cut it, so I added bigger inner borders on top and bottom, then squared the darn thing up. (I am so pathetically bad at squaring, which is why I don't stress out about it, and make it a virtue to not square whenever possible. This is squarish enough.) Attached the borders with my patented non-measuring technique (lay it on and pin, cut off excess). Didn't bother with squaring up the outer borders - they're square enough and quilting will distort it more anyway.

Am now quilting my beloved fans using regular black quilting thread. This project might actually look good with just a cross-hatch grid, but I did that last quilt I made and I got thoroughly bored. I happen to like the fans, both making them and looking at them. So there. If it turns out the fans look bad over the faces, I can switch to the cross-hatch then and still have my fans circling the border.

4 comments:

Hello...talked to you once on Bonnie Hunters comment page... just have been meaning to leave a comment for you for a while, cuz I see that you and I have a lot in common and thought it might be nice to say hello to another fellow expat...

I'm 35 living in Ireland, grew up in Maryland... married an Irishman which is how I got over here to Ireland! (Waterford in the Southeast) How did you get over to Egypt?? Before hubby and kids came along I backpacked from London to Egypt, spending a month in Turkey, one in Israel and one in Egypt. I went all over Egypt, even out to Siwa Oasis near Libya...down to Abu Simbel/Aswan and learned to dive in Dahab on Sinai peninsula...loved my time there as a tourist in 94...

Do you really have a quilting bee in Egypt? I find it hard to find quilters here in Ireland...my only choice is to pay $100ish for classes with a nazi instructor that turns over your piecing to tell you what you've done wrong...can't do that!! I don't believe in the necessity of always having pointy points or perfect squares either...

Anyway...I enjoy reading your blog and Bonnies as well...and would love to know about expat life in Egypt sometime if you have a chance!

Morning Tonya, left you a comment over at Pieces..*VBG* Just had to say I love how you work. I can just see wandering around, trailed by the "kitty posse" mumbling .."hmmmmm, space aliens, wonky house, hmmmm, space for rent..invasion forces from V". You are marvelous !

It often seems hard for some quilters to understand the peace and sense of wellbeing that comes from "running the lines" in hand quilting. It seems to sooth the body, put the heart at ease, and frees up our minds to wander where they will. At least it does that for me, and sounds like you find a similar place as you hand quilt.Thanks for sharing yourself and your really creative way of being in the world.

Cathi,uh oh, I never went back and checked Bonnie's comments page to see that you responded to my response. Sorry about that, see it now. I did check out your blog - you know you could always put some quilting into it... I'll put up a post on expat quilting life soon. By the way, I bet you've seen more of Egypt than I have.

I did see just A LOT in Egypt even took a felucca ride up the Nile to Valley of the Kings which my friend and I rode bicycles through to see the tombs...

Forgot to say...I'm a sci fi addict too...remember watching all of the V series, even had it taped on the Betamax (now doesn't that date me!!) Love Babylon 5, Star Trek (though I'm more of a New Generation fan than classic...) like Stargate as well...

anyway...look forward to hearing tales of being an expat in Egypt...how long have you guys been there? and what brought you out there? I used to work for a consultancy in DC that sent TEFL teachers out there...

About Me

I live in Florida with my seven cats and my husband. I've been a quilter since 1987 and consider my style liberated and non-traditional traditional (think Gwen Marston, Gee's Bend, and string quilts) and I watch way too much tv while sewing and hand-quilting.